Finally Hearing
by just giddy
Summary: Katie and Oliver get a first hand experience on what happens when conflicting emotions and feeling have a row with eachother and what it's like to see the end product. semisequel to Love To Hear. i've told you a 1000 times i'm bad at summaries


**M'kay. I wasn't sure to tack this on as a last chapter to Love To Hear or not. I wrote it up and loved it way to much to just leave it as a chapter and I really did like where I ended L2H. So I decided to make this as a one shot sequel to it. So if you haven't read Love to Hear-it's understandable but you would understand the end a hell lot more if you read the other fic. It's only two chaps so it wouldn't take ages to read. I would recommend reading it if you already haven't. and to all those who did read it/went back and read it, thank you so much and I hope you all like it.**

Katie Bell sighed as the early morning March light fell through the window. Sitting in funky teal hospital pajamas with her legs crossed in front of her, she was beginning to wonder if long ago she had signed a contract with every other Quidditch player that allotted her a certain amount of days in the Hospital Wing. She quickly shook her head and mentally scolded herself for thinking such an absurd thing. But she also thought spending a week in the hospital wing for a broken right pelvis was absurd-she had seen Madame Pomphrey mend bones three times faster. And according to Madame-she would have to spend another three days in there as well. Remembering this she flopped back onto the mountain of pillows behind her that guaranteed she would constantly propped up on a 50 degree angle- she had tried to point this out to Madame Pomphrey that this made it dreadfully and uncomfortable and difficult to sleep on. She rolled her eyes as she recalled the old nurses rebuttals and in doing so she caught sight of a mop of messy brown hair.

Katie smiled to herself as she looked at her captain. He was sitting in one of those rigid-visitor chairs, slumped forward as his arms and sleeping head were on the side of her cot near her newly repaired hip. She reached over and brushed a few brown locks off is snoring face, thinking he was extremely gorgeous for spending nearly the whole week with her in the hospital wing.

_wait…no, extremely generous. _She corrected herself, rattling her head a bit, _generous, generous, GENEROUS. _

Oliver gave a quick snort and Katie reflexively drew her hand away which she was startled to find that she wasn't surprised that it had come to land on his arm. Wondering if that made any sense she watched as Oliver slowly woke up.

Oliver Wood was a man of tradition. He wasn't concerned that he went through nearly the same motions every morning. So, as his usual routine went; he sat up, blinked groggily, vigorously rubbed his face with his hands before stretching his arms above his head and running a hand down his face. After this routine he allowed his eyes to focus and register and once that had been accomplished he was startled for a moment to find himself where he was-sitting in a unnaturally and inhumanly rigid visitor's chair rather than his comfortable bed. But then he saw his chaser's familiar face faintly smiling at him with her head cocked to the side a bit on the hospital bed in front of him. He let out a groan as his mind readily replayed the image of her getting hit with a bludger and forcefully knocking her nearly her off her broom. But his captain's side let out a smile in an odd pride as he remembered how she had held on by her fingertips with a broken hip until they came to help: he had convinced himself that it was he who had made her as tough as nails.

"What are you smiling about?"

Oliver dropped her smile and shook his head before cradling it in his hands. Or maybe she was just as stubborn as hell as well as tough as nails. Either way he found himself spending every moment he could there in the Hospital wing with her. But he wasn't sure this would justify with his teachers for cutting their classes.

He looked up at her to see that she was staring out the window into the early morning light. Oliver sighed, knowing he would've slept worse than he had if he had not been here as much as he had. He watched as she mechanically tucked a lock of golden blonde hair behind her ear and knew that the backache that was just starting to sear through his body for sleeping like he had was worth it.

Katie's head snapped back around as she heard Oliver let out a groan. She watched as he stood up and desperately tried to crack his back. Watching in amusement as he twisted this way and that-wearing a forest green sweater and a pair of old and worn jeans- and she couldn't help but thinking that he looked absolutely "_generous_".

"Oh jeez, Ol'," she sighed , pushing the covers away and slipping off her cot-wincing as her bare feet hit the freezing marble floor, "You're doing it all wrong."

"Kat," he sighed, using his (and only his) nickname for her as she took a few steps towards him. "You know you should-"

" 'Stay in bed'," she said in a voice that was uncannily identical to Madame Pomphrey's. "I know. But that old bat doesn't realize that I could do the cha-cha, tango, and waltz if I wanted to," she said to him-turning him so his shoulder was facing her, "Not that I know how to dance…" she mused, placing a fist on the back of his hip bone and a sturdy hand on the front of his shoulder. With one quick push to his shoulder Katie could hear his back crack at every vertebrae.

"In the name of Merlin…" Oliver groaned, placing a hand on his lower back, "Where did you learn that?"

Katie shrugged her shoulders and motioned for him to turn around the other way. With an exasperated sigh he did so and she did the same thing.

Sitting back down on his rigid chair he wondered where she had truly picked that one up-older brother perhaps. Still tired he buried his head in his hands, continuing to ponder the thought.

"Feeling any better?" Katie asked as she gingerly walked to the foot of her bed on tippy-toes to the table of treats stationed there.

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" she heard him ask as she picked up another chocolate frog from Alicia Spinnet.

"You would know better than me," she said as she opened the box, still precariously perched on her toes. "You've been here just as long as me-which was very geor-generous of you by the way." she just caught herself as she looked over to him. He gave her a faint smile and she popped the chocolate sweet into her mouth and pulled out the card inside.

_Harriet EversonHoly Head Harpy chaser from…_she had that card-two of them actually-but she read the over the facts and stared at the moving picture anyway. Somehow she knew Oliver wasn't looking at her but _looking_ at her. She didn't know if this was good or bad and immediately choose the latter. She didn't have to glance over at him to know that his brown chocolate eyes were traveling over her bed hair, funky teal pajama pants and matching too-big tee shirt; no doubt with dismal. With a small sigh she put down the card and looked up at him to confirm her assumptions.

Well, not completely. Katie had figured that he was looking at her in disregard when in reality it was nearly the exact opposite.

"You don't dance?" he asked, sincerely curious and cocking his head to the side a bit.

"Not 'don't'-_can't_," she corrected.

"Well that settles it," he said, getting to his feet and grabbing one of her wrists.

"That settles what?" she nearly cried as he pulled her into the middle of the floor-away from her 'safe' cot.

"We're going to fix that," he said as he watched in amusement as horror started to write itself across her face. He smiled as she continued to protest.

"…I can't-!"

"Oh come on, Kat," he groaned, "Everyone can dance."

"Not me," she protested stubbornly, "I've got two very big left feet."

Oliver mocked her as he looked down at her feet. Looking back up he was satisfied that even though they were on their toes-her feet consisted of both left and right, seemingly in proportion to her 5'7" frame.

"You're a terrible liar, Katherine Ann Bell," he smirked at her.

She rolled her green eyes at him as he placed her hands on his shoulders and gingerly placed his hands on her waist. But she tried to fight him and he had to hold her tighter and 'gingerly' became a thing of the past.

"C'mon, you stubborn mule," he said, "Just stand on my feet and give it a try."

Oliver smiled as he felt her step on his feet and slide her arms around his neck. Holding her close to him, he nearly forgot that this was supposed to be a lesson.

"Well…erm, dancing is easy-for the girls at least," he said, going through the motions of swaying back and forth and taking small steps.

"Is that right cap'n?" she asked, and eyebrow cocked and her nose just two inches from his.

"Yeah," he nodded, "The guy leads so all the girl has to do is follow."

"Why can't the girl lead?" her brow was slightly furrowed.

"Because."

"Because why?"

"Just because."

"Just because isn't a good enough answer," she said as they continued to 'dance'.

"Now you're just trying to annoy me."

She let out a light laugh and Oliver felt his eyebrows shot off his forehead as she rested her head just under his chin. Deciding to settle his head on her hair he heard her let out a content sigh.

"You're doing marvelously," he said softly as they continued across the marble floor.

"Don't insult my intelligence."

Oliver let out a small chuckled as he readjusted his head on her golden blonde hair.

Although she let out a stubborn sigh Oliver knew she must've been enjoying it somewhat or else she would've walked away ages ago. He was ecstatic that she hadn't. As she was standing on his feet; they were flushed up against each other-he was enjoying it for all the wrong and right reasons.

The right reasons because he knew he liked her more than the close friend she was. He loved everything about her right down from her corky-and-always-upbeat personality to her stubborn faults. Closing his eyes from both content and sleeplessness, he knew that this "lesson" had been a good idea. Be he was also enjoying it for all the wrong reasons as well. Well, maybe not all the wrong reasons because he considered himself a gentleman and having her this close to him was not his prime motive. But the fact that he was enjoying this closeness between close friends was. He didn't even know if she felt the same. In fact, he was 98 percent positive she didn't. For this a wave of guilt and other conflicting emotions washed over him.

"Oliver?" Katie asked, concern laced through her voice as he stopped and dropped his hands away from her waist.

"I think you have the hang of it…" he trailed off softly, looking at her bare feet on top of his shoed ones.

It was safe to say that Katie was confused as ever as her eyes traveled to the same place as his.

"Oh, well…" she said, stepping off his feet, letting her hands drop and taking a few steps back more. "Thanks," she was meet with a nod of his head and the first awkward silence in a long time. "You should probably get ready fro classes…" she trailed off, uncertain of how to break the awkwardness.

"Right," he said, looking back up to her, "Feel better, alright Kat?" he smiled concernedly.

She gave him a faint smile, "I'll try cap'n."

Flopping back down on her bed, with a loud groan as he closed the doors behind him as he left, she nearly kicked herself. It just struck her that it was Sunday.

Outside in the corridor on the other side of the large oak doors-Oliver was going through a similar scenario.

The next three days in the hospital wing had been lonely and borderline depressing for Katie. Sure; Angelina, Alicia and the twins would visit when they didn't have classes. But that left large gaps of time with only herself to keep her company for no one had been cutting classes lately. She constantly looked over to her old leather messenger back pack with malice and hate. Normally she left inanimate objects alone but not only was her bag containing more than a weeks worth of work-that had yet to be started-in it but it was also sitting in the chair next to her bed. Katie was convinced that it did not belong there and that instead it should be replaced with her Scottish captain-who now only visited with someone else with him. On her-thankfully-last day in the hospital wing she let out a large groan of defeat before reaching over, grabbing her bag, and pulling it into her funky-teal pajama-ed lap. Forcefully tossing her textbooks to the ground (an insult to the educational system no doubt) she pulled out a piece of parchment and quill and began scribbling. In her half-script/half-print messy handwriting she began to list the ways why she and Oliver could never be She and Oliver. An hour later she crumpled the parchment (the product of her brain racking) into a ball and chucked it across her bed. She watched as the crumpled paper ball quickly dropped back to her ironed-to-perfection-sheets having too much force in it's trajectory. She flopped back onto her multiple pillows-frustrated at both the pathetic distance and the identically short, pathetic list.

On the other side of the other side of the castle-the exact opposite, really-Oliver was trying to cope with a wave of emotions in Divination. Sitting in the North East Tower, he decided that it was really a typhoon and all the aromas floating around really wasn't helping either. As confusion allied with guilt and unresolved-sexual-tension in battering away at his brain; decency, friendship and a little thing called a conscious tried to maintain their defenses. And Oliver was just as tempted as ever to hex himself back into last year. Suddenly that idea didn't sound so bad considering it would give him more time rather than the few precious months he had left. Oliver was about to bash his head against the crystal ball in front of him as unresolved-sexual-tension urged him to run down to the Hospital Wing and snog his chaser senseless and friendship _kindly _pointed out that the past four years could be shattered in doing so. Opening his textbook as Professor Treawley instructed, Oliver decided that internal battles were far worse than being hexed ten times over.  
Around the same time Oliver was heading down to the dungeons for potions, Katie was practically skipping out of the hospital wing. Sure, the only clothes she had was her practice Quidditch uniform, but either way she was joyous to be released from Madame Pomphrey's clutches. Having decided days ago that she wasn't going to go to classes; she slung her bag and long spare scarlet robe over her shoulder and headed outside. A speck of color in a sea of black robes hurrying to class.

As Katie turned down the first staircase, Oliver had made up his mind. Knowing that this would require him cutting potions- a task that would surely result in deducted points and detention(s)- he stormed through the large oak doors of the hospital wing and purposely walked to where his chaser should've been. At the time he had been determined to give into unresolved-sexual-tension, but seeing her cot empty, he doubted he would ever rack up the nerve again. The bell to be in class rang as he let out a defeated sigh and let himself fall into the rigid chair. He ran his hand through his hair and blankly stared out the window. He concluded that there really was no point in going to class now and get the detentions as well but this still left the 'Katie Problem' out in the open he reminded himself as he continued to look out the window. Suddenly seeing the scarlet and gold figure standing at the lake's edge, he picked up his bag and briskly walked out of the hospital wing. He was hoping that he still had at least an ounce of nerve left.

Everyone has a different way of expressing emotion. Skipping or singing when one has a bad voice could be paired with joy and moping around and snapping at everyone could be ;paired with anger. But Katie wasn't sure what emotion she could pair skipping rocks with because she was currently experiencing a hurricane of them. As the last rock that left her hand didn't skip but soared over the water's surface as fast as she could manage she wondered if she was skipping or chucking rocks. Sighing, she ran a hand through her hair as the rock landed in the water with a resounding _plop!_ Her jaw clenched as she bent down and grabbed a new handful of rocks before throwing each as far and forcefully as she could. Just as one sailed just above the water, the giant squid surfaced and was none too pleased as it hit him square in the head. Katie could only watch as it raised one large tentacle before slamming it back down near the shore and sending a large wave of cold water over her-soaking her through.

Oliver watched in amusement as he walked towards her as her shoulders went rigid, as she stomped her foot and started cursing off the giant squid.

"So Spinnet taught you some key words in her vocabulary, then?" he asked as he came up to her.

Turning around, startled by his voice, Katie gave him a small smile when she saw him, "Nah, picked it up on my own from the last dawn practice."

Oliver let out a small chuckle as he reached her. Dropping his bag and taking off his black robe he tried to ignore the fact that her soaking wet shirt was now acting as a second skin to her lean frame. "Well that's when she takes full advantage of it," he said, reaching over and draping his robe over her shoulders.

"Thanks," Katie said softly as she brushed her wet hair out of her face-genuinely touched by his kind gesture and the fact that in her wet state he had kept eye contact with her.

A silence fell over them as Katie began to wonder if eye contact was just him being decent or if she just wasn't good enough for anything else OR maybe she was good enough but he was being decent anyway. But with all this rampaging through her mind she only became more frustrated with the situation.

"Oliver," she sighed lightly after a while, "What's going on?"

He shrugged his shoulders as he started to pace back and forth with his hands in his pockets. "Honestly?" he looked up at her, "I have no idea," he started to pace again, keeping his eyes on the ground and Katie wondered if this was how he would deal with a hurricane of emotions if he was going through the same one as her.

"Well that makes two of us…" she trailed off lightly , pulling the black robe around her tighter as he stopped and looked up at her confused. "Ok! I admit it!" she cried out, throwing her hands up in the air in defeat, "I can't stop thinking about you! I tried eating a pair of malted milk balls and all I could see where your brown eyes staring at me. So I threw them across the room and I could mentally hear you telling me that I didn't follow through enough and how I expect to win the cup with form like that. ," he could only watch as she continued her confession, "And then yesterday Alicia brought me _another _card and the scattered X's and O's reminded me of one of your plays. Everything comes back to you," she sighed defeatedly, "And the more I tried not to think of you the worse it got."

After her sudden confession it was safe to say that Katie was expecting a reaction. But Oliver was in a slight state of shock. Anyone would be after that-she was still shocked she had said it.

"Ok…" Katie sighed, breaking the silence and tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. "Or we could pretend that I said that mentally and you didn't hear a word of that," she suggested with a meek smile and shrugged her shoulders.

Oliver shook his head, his own meek smile playing at his lips as he took a step to her and put his hands on her shoulders, "I was just about to tell you the same thing."

"You're kidding," she said shortly in disbelief.

"Well, switch malted milk balls for a pair of broccoli flavored Bertie Botts I pulled out earlier," he mused.

"Are you mocking me?" she asked skeptically with an eyebrow cocked, very aware that that his hands had traveled to rest on her hips and that their noses were just inches from each other.

As the seconds past their noses drifted closer and closer as if on their own accord and Oliver decided that he better hurry up before the last of his nerves would fail him. And with out any further ado, he gingerly placed his lips on top of hers.

After just a moment or two, Katie instinctively pushed him off her. She couldn't help it, it was a first instinct to one of her closest friends to kissing her. But she was rather happy that it wasn't as rough of a movement as it could've been.

"You are mocking me," she accused him.

"Wh-What?" Oliver asked, flabbergasted by the last few seconds. "Will you make up your mind already-"

Katie cut him off for she had literally thrown her arms around his neck, kissing him back much less gingerly than he had, and almost sent the tumbling backwards.

"Ok," Oliver said, pulling just his head back, "You really have to make up your mind."

"Will you just be quiet?" she half-heartedly scolded him as a smile danced across her lips.

"Oh, right," he muttered as he took his cue to wrap his arms around her and continue the traditional motions of snogging his star chaser. Though it would be a first.

Katie could feel Oliver's smile against her lips which in turn caused her to smile as well. Both finally hearing what they needed to hear, they could snog each other senseless without having unresolved sexual tension having a row with friendship.

**Oh my god... So long….well, not really but I had written the majority of this on paper at two in the morning for like three nightsand I must say I am proud of it even if it did end in a snog-out. Mostly stuff I write at two in the morning comes out like crap-but I would be proud of it even if even if I wrote it at two in the afternoon.**

**So please review. My usual reviewers know what I like (or they should by now) and any new reviewers; please feel free to leave me a very long review.**


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